Liar, Liar
by Axie Flamesilocks
Summary: Pants on fire. Akuveku does not get enough love. AU.


Posting this for no particular occasion, just because wer. Lately I have just enough muse for these drabbly kinda things and they're fun, so I indulge. If I get consistent enough I'll totally do a series and stop being so scattered and lulz.

* * *

Axel never lied.

Except all the time.

He told Vexen so himself, on one of those days back before everything grew cold and the leaves hadn't turned fiery and given up on life. Back then it had been a joke.

"_You promised to bring me back a spoon, you colossal liar."_

"_Me? I NEVER lie! Except all the time."_

A wry smirk, a flash of the emerald greens—_so VERY charming, aren't we_—it was easy to be bitter, looking back. Because it all fell apart so quickly, didn't it? They said it'd never last and it didn't, but Vexen didn't believe that at first. Axel was so full of fire and life and love and _passion_—and that's what it boiled down to. When everything else fell away, passion was left, burning at Axel's core like an engine and melting Vexen away. They started going through the motions, clockwork dolls with wooden lips meeting at the strike of twelve and privy to _how_ but not to _why_.

Vexen couldn't stand it.

He stormed out of Axel's room in disgust one night and hurried to collect his things in a sped up version of the meticulous pattern that was Vexen, motions afire with indignant fury. "Always welcome," Axel drawled after him sardonically, his voice thick with post-coital glaze, and Vexen whirled on him, smacking the doorjamb in an old habit that demanded attention.

"I may as well be a _guest_ in my own home. _Here_ I'm little more than a plaything!"

"Then why do you _come_ here?" Axel asked lecherously, eyebrow crooking.

For the first time, Vexen realized he couldn't answer that.

He didn't start noticing Axel's friends until it was too late, either. They'd always been around—the musician he knew from high school, the gambler he ran into at the night club, the angelic little artist he encountered at the boardwalk, and he always knew them individually. Alone. _You couldn't have been the LEAST bit curious, could you._ The only one Vexen ever objected to was Larxene, because he knew her name—which was because she flirted. Axel told him she did that to everyone, and Vexen believed him, because Axel never lied.

_Stupid!_

Then, on the fourth of December, Vexen woke up.

Everything had grown cold. Vexen wanted the life back, the fire, and Axel had said he was always welcome—not to mention the key implied as much. _That was a lie, too? Shocking._ So he went to the apartment early, knowing Axel tended to sleep in, and promptly discovered, not Axel, but a doe-eyed blond boy curling in on himself and tugging the sheets around him like a shield. The two stared at one another for an eternity of seconds, and then Axel stepped out of the shower to complete the nightmare—dripping, with a towel wrapped around his waist.

There was nothing resembling remorse in his eyes.

Something in Vexen's heart cracked—splintered—shattered. Because even when things took a turn for the worse—even when the meaning went out of being together and he thought it wouldn't last, he'd held on to the fact that they were both trying. They were in this together. He was the only one.

How could he have been.

So.

_Blind._

Locked up in the lab, out of the way, choking on fumes—_how easy was it_ to slip behind his back and be right there to catch him just outside the door, rape his ears with the lazy roll of promises and endearments and sweet _**nothings**_. _Snake—spider—__**traitor**__—you colossal LIAR!_

The room spun. Vexen felt sick.

There was no battle to win here. It was already fought and he had lost. Horribly. Miserably. Utterly. Remaining meant breaking and running meant dying, so Vexen ran—or not quite ran, but walked with fast feather-light almost-flying steps. He might not be able to win back a heart he'd never had, but he wouldn't break for it. Not here. The door slamming blotted out the sound that might have been Axel calling his name, and then there was a sharp clink as the key that no longer mattered hit the ground somewhere. He was _done._

He had been a fool.

Now he would be Vexen.

And yet, evening found him leaning against the railing at the park, watching the sunset paint a blood red band in the clouds.

"_Hey, Vexen. Do you know why the sun sets red?"_

"_Yes, and far more thoroughly than you do, but enlighten me anyway."_

"_It's cuz red travels the farthest."_

"_Don't be idiotic."_

The _irony_.

Vexen jolted abruptly to one side when he noticed someone move right in beside him and rest her arms on the railing, looking out to follow his gaze. "Ex_cuse_ m—!"

It was Larxene.

She didn't look like Larxene, though. Her hair was down, and the twin strands on either side of her face looked almost like the ones that framed his. But she didn't turn to face him. In the dimming golden hues of the dying day, her eyes looked dangerous…but dormant. They were nursing a hurt inside that wasn't fresh enough to bring out the monster within.

"He hurt you, too. Didn't he."

Vexen said nothing. He didn't have to.

Because Axel never lied.

Except all the time.


End file.
